Fi Phillips

Well, that's another year nearly over and what a year it's been. The Highlights Back in January, I made my freelance copy and content writing business official by launching my website . I never expected it to take off as quickly as it did. After taking part in a Camp NaNoWriMo in July and receiving a critique from the Faber Academy in August, I finished my novel, re-naming it, Haven Wakes. It's currently doing the rounds of UK literary agents. Haven Wakes has also been entered into the Bath Children's Novel Award competition. With that novel put to bed for now, I started on the following novel, Haven Journeys - set partly in Iceland, and with selkies and genies for Steve and his friends to deal with, this is a continuation of the adventure that began in Haven Wakes. The Lows After running my murder mystery playwriting business Murdering The Text for 21 years, I decided to call it a day in November. I'm not the same person I was when I started the b...

By the time November rolls round, a lot of people are on full Christmas mode. If it isn't present shopping, it's event planning, or just reeling out Christmas songs and memes on social media. Me? I'm happy to plan ahead, where needed, but I also believe in savouring the moment. For instance, despite the time of year, the weather here is glorious, mostly dry and with that wonderful golden light  that you often get in the autumn. What's the rush to get to the end of the year? It'll be here soon enough. I'm busy this month, with work, with writing and with saying farewell to something that's been a major part of my life for over two decades. And no, I don't mean my husband. Bye bye Murdering The Text Back in 1997, I wrote my first murder mystery play with co-writer and friend, Janet, as a way to raise funds for the amateur theatre group we were involved in. Little did we know that it would turn into a business that would serve other amateur th...

May marks the end of spring and the beginning of summer, fitting in two bank holidays (if you're in the UK) and so two short weeks that makes it feel like holiday time is on the way. It's as if life is telling you to slow down for a while and take a break. Except, I don't feel like taking a break. I want to race on, head down, and get on with all the good stuff 2018 has thrown in my path. This has definitely proven to be a year of 'new' and 'motivation' so far. Murdering The Text Running along with that feeling of motivation is my plan to write two new murder mysteries this year. The first was an idea that came to me while looking back over some old pantomime photos. The second idea came from a discussion with a customer about a murder mystery they want me to write for them. Fi Phillips Copywriter This month, I'm on the look-out for new customers to bolster my income from my current customers and I'm working on a freebie for subscribers...

Easter has been and gone. The chocolate eggs have been chomped and digested. I've started a new diet. What else is going on at Fi Central? Working on my novel Now that I'm working full time hours, any non-paid writing is being put off until evenings or weekends (including these blog posts). For a long time, I felt blocked with my novel. I could blame my lack of writing on how busy I was with my new business , or school holidays, or just needing 'thinking space'. I won't call it writer's block because that always seems like an excuse. I prefer Steven Pressfield's term 'resistance'. And boy, was I resisting planting my bum on that seat to work on my novel. There was an element of self doubt involved but the more I drilled down into why Inner Fi didn't want to write, the more I realised that with money coming in from my new business, the motivations to be a novelist had changed. Having my novel out there is no longer about earning a ...

If January was a gift, then February is a gem waiting to be chipped from a wall of rock. In other words, there's a lot of good stuff ahead but I'm going to have to work hard to get it. I'll be drinking plenty of (decaf) coffee and tea, researching much, putting plans into effect, and generally living with my nose to the grindstone. And I'm loving it! Copywriting I've started on the website for my new copywriting business. I love this stage of any project - the beginning where you bring together all the resources you'll need and plan away. Having said that, I find it all too easy to switch into magpie mode and become distracted by all the shiny things. "Ooh, pretty Wordpress theme. Look at the colourful photos. Should I make a video?"  I'm rather proud of my logo. Have a look. Murdering The Text Although I'm shelving my next murder mystery play until my copywriting business is up and running, the idea pokes at m...

It was back to work for me today and I have to say that 2018 feels very different to 2017. Maybe, it's the 'new year vibe' with all its associated intentions and resolutions or perhaps it's starting the new year in a new home. Whatever it is, I feel motivated and raring to go. January, never mind 2018, is a very different world to the one I lived in a month ago. I've joined a new Facebook group for creatives which encourages its members to assign a word to 2018. My word is 'growth'. So what am I up to in January? My main focus will be setting up my copywriting business. Although I started down the freelance copywriting path in 2017, this year I want to solidify that path with an actual named business. I also want to set up my business in the right way this time round, not just flitting around the issue and missing critical areas that tripped me up further down the line when I was setting up Murdering The Text . There's legal steps to take, a we...

The festive season and the end of the year are coming up fast. It's almost time to shut up shop, reach for a mince pie and turn on the Christmas lights. 2017 has been an incredible year for me personally but, like the rocky terrain in the title image of this post, it's been a challenging one too. I've learned so much, set myself on a steep learning curve, and met people who have changed my view on life (and my future) forever. So, with my goals and plans for 2018 firmly in hand, I thought I'd look back over the last twelve months. January, February and March Many people have slammed the door on 2016 as a year of divisiveness, hate and loss. I have to agree that yes, it's been all of that, but for me it's also been a time of growth and realisation. Not all of that was comfortable, for the world or me personally, but no worthwhile change was ever achieved from a place of safety and comfort. Challenging times bring out the best in people. Looking...

Advent calendars are eagerly opened each morning, the tree is up in all it's tinsel-ly grandeur, and Christmas cards are written and ready to post. December has arrived. After the house move in November, we're well on the way to unpacking all the boxes and bags we brought with us. The new place finally feels like home. December will be a month of winding down after all the hard work of settling in here, preparing for the festive break, and looking ahead to all the new beginnings that January will bring. Writing-wise, I'm determined to carve out some time during the Christmas holiday to return to my novel (armed with advice from my recent meeting with literary agent Lucy Morris ). Work-wise, Murdering the Text has never closed its online doors during or since the move. Blog posts have been written and newsletters have continued to fly out. We'll be winding down for Christmas on 22nd December though, opening up again on 3rd January. Family-wise, the present ...

August is always a mixture of a month. On the one hand, it's summer break and my teenage monsters are off school. They're of an age to keep themselves and each other happy (aside from the bickering) but I try to get them out of the house (and away from their computers) most days. They're good company, and with our dog in tow for some of those outings, I enjoy our summer adventures. The downside is that my work schedule is massively interrupted. I'm lucky to be self employed, working from home and able to arrange my hours around my family, but it means early work before everyone else is up, and working some evening hours too.  So, aside from the adventures, I'll be juggling my time this month to include: ongoing copywriting work along with some training I'm taking on the subject too, finding new clients for my scriptwriting business plus adding more value to my existing clients, working on my novel, and investigating setting up a new writer/co...

Creating quality images for my blog posts and website has always been a bit hit and miss for me, so when a friend introduced me to Canva I was delighted. Canva is a "free graphic design tool website". You can create all kind of  graphics on there, such as social media images, letterhead, certificates, books covers, and marketing flyers. What's more, it also provides royalty free images and photographs for no charge, along with shapes, frames, layouts, fonts and backgrounds. Having said that, if you can't find exactly what you want then you can pay for additional items. Of course, you can always upload your own images, which is what I've mostly done. There are a lot of Canva tutorials  available, both on the website and posted online by users too, but I found Canva easy to pick up with a little trial and error. So far, I've created images for Pinterest, photo galleries, email headers, and blog posts, along with my 2017 vision board. It's fre...

Yes, that's the same image that I used for March. April will be much the same as last month. Murdering The Text This month, I'm concentrating on finishing my twenty year anniversary murder mystery. It's still as yet untitled but already the characters are sharing their stories. I can tell the writing process is going well when I can picture the characters moving through the play on-stage. Once the script is finished, that isn't the end of it. I then have to put together character histories, motive sheets and a guidebook for the director. Copywriting I'm now firmly settled into this career path. I have one main client for now which is fine while I gain valuable experience. I do wonder why I didn't try this out before now. Apart from that, I'll be enjoying the spring weather and getting the family out and about over the Easter break. There'll be chocolate eggs and dog walking, not a bad combination. See you next month.

After an introductory month to my new role as freelance copywriter in February, I'm now set firmly on the course of this fresh career path. With plenty of work on the way, I'm enjoying the challenge of writing for a different arena. Writing to order isn't new for me. Plenty of my murder mystery plays were commissioned by customers. Being economic with time and wordcount, however, is something that I haven't had to deal with much in the past but it's a new development that I'm relishing. Murdering The Text This year, I will have been writing murder mystery plays for twenty years. Twenty years! How did that happen? To celebrate this impressive anniversary, I'm writing a new, as yet untitled murder mystery that relates back to the original script that started this journey. I already have a cast, a setting and a decade (the 1980s). I'll let you know when the script is finished and ready to be performed. Shadowbinder I'm still working on the re...

20 years! Started with a friend back in 1997 as a way to raise much needed funds for the amateur dramatics group we were part of, I never envisioned that I would still be penning murder mystery plays for an ever increasing number of customers in the UK and beyond by the time we hit 2017. To celebrate this impressive anniversary, Murdering The Text will release a brand new, murder mystery script later this year, a theatrical nod back to our original play, The Tangled Web. Happy birth-year Murdering The Text.

I recently joined the PTA at my children's high school (Parents and Teachers Association) because I felt I had something to offer in the form of my murder mystery fundraisers and past experience with PTA groups. I also wanted to help the school because any improvement in school resources has to help my children. Finally, I wanted to meet some new people and socialise outside my mainly home based existence. I was nervous about attending but had a lovely evening with parents and teachers alike. I came away happy and feeling that I'd offered up some useful ideas and generally added to the enthusiasm shown by everyone there. I arrived home chirpy and chatty. The next morning though, I began to doubt myself. Maybe I'd talked too much. Perhaps the teachers had just pretended that my ideas were good when actually I was being annoying. What if they didn't ask me back? What if I had earmarked my children as the offspring of that tedious, writer woman? What if, what if, wha...

January seems to have flashed by in the  blink of a watery eye and suddenly February is here with its promise of spring. I feel like I've spent the month in a curious limbo, coming down after my birthday trip to Venice and reeling at the loss of so many icons. First, there was David Bowie, such a wonderfully creative man, the brilliant actor Alan Rickman who I'll always remember as an irreverent angel, Glenn Frey from the Eagles, then finally the velvet tones and kindly ways of Terry Wogan. January seems to have left the world a little less colourful. So February needs to be a new beginning, with fresh colour and creativity, and a renewed intent. That's how I'm treating it. Let's get this year started. Novel(s) Novel 1 is still away with a handful of literary agents so I'm working on the next two novels. After eight rejections that all had much the same feedback (loved reading this, keep sending it out, but it's not for us), I posed the question to...

After the build up to Christmas and the day itself, my family and I are having a few days at home together. It's all very relaxed and with no real plans to keep to. Late nights, family games and good company. My husband and children are taking advantage of the lack of routine to have lie-ins so I'm usually first up, enjoying the quiet with my morning coffee. It gives me time to think and reflect on the year that's almost over. It's been generally a good one, in some ways quite magical, and definitely a year I want to remember. Back in January, I posted my 2015 reading list and my goals for the year . I didn't do very well with the reading list, only completing three of the fifteen (even worse than in 2014). I must read more next year. I did better with my goals. I revised and polished my novel and began the search for an agent. I returned to the partial first draft of my second novel which now requires a massive rethink because of changes to the first novel. Du...

Where have the last few weeks gone? I wrote September's post about my plans for the month with the full intention of posting lots more in the following weeks. Then, our house move happened and somewhere in there our internet connection was cut off for several days too.My time has been hijacked by continual carrying, unpacking, searching and way too much cleaning. I'm still surrounded by boxes but at least now they're only knee high and I can see my family over them. Yesterday, I handed over the keys for our old house and so today, I can finally sit in my new study without any immediate deadlines to drag me off my chair. So what's happening in October for me, as a writer? My Novel I'm still working on my novel, editing and polishing. I was excited to return to it this week but nervous too. Time away from my writing allows me to look at it with fresh eyes and I worried that I might have lost the thread of my storyline in all my editing but that doesn't...

During my time away from blogging to work on my novel, I reconsidered the use I was making of this website and I've decided to alter a few things. Tuesday Choice Words While there is a lot of brilliant advice out there for writers, what I've found in searching for new links and videos to bring to you each Tuesday, is that a large percentage of it is repeated advice, different slants on the same literary gem. So as of this week, Tuesday Choice Words will cease to exist. What I will bring to you instead is a monthly post of an article or video that I think really stands out from the crowd, something that has helped me personally. Book Reviews Although my writing has taken precedence recently, I love to read. I also love to share my literary finds. Expect more resulting book reviews. My Journey I started this blog (back in 2009) as a way to explore and share my own writing journey. Somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost that. Now that my novel is nearing the fi...

Yes, you did read that right. Festive Reapings is the third of the customer commissioned murder mystery plays that I wrote this year. With a cast of three men and five women, this murder mystery has a Christmas theme. Things aren't going well in the Grotto at Fairman's department store. The fairy has been sacked, Santa is drunk in the gents toilet, and to top it all, there are hardly any customers. What else could go wrong? Festive Reapings had its first outing in November this year and you can find more photos of the Purley Players' production  here . Find more details about this murder mystery on the Murdering the Text website .

"Stretch and breathe. Are you with me, ladies?" Priscilla Vincente, mature, glamorous, aerobics instructor has the world at her well-manicured fingertips. Men fall at her feet. Other women just don't stand a chance. And as for her class, she has them just where she wants them (under her thumb and paying for the benefit).  What could possibly spoil it all? This is the second of my new murder mystery plays, set in an aerobics class with four male and six female characters. You can now buy it from my website. Have a look .